Should Have Knocked On Wood

I am going to have to write this quick because I absolutely HAVE to study for my French midterm which I have to take this afternoon and therefore can only write for the next 17 minutes (aka until 11:45).

I just had the most bizarre experience. Well, that's not quite accurate. What I'm experiencing is like emotional contractions. (Which I guess suggests that I'm in emotional labor and am about to pass an emotional baby, none of which is true or really relevant or even metaphorically applicable, so let's ignore that.) And what I really mean by that is that I'm having really intense bursts of really intense emotions, with downtime in between.

For example, starting about 15 minutes ago, I had an explosive blast of homesickness which had me crying for 5 minutes. About 8 minutes ago (3 minutes after the 5 minute crying jag stopped) I had another burst, which lasted for about 2 minutes. I suspect that in a little while, I will have another burst, and will cry about something else (or the same thing, or nothing at all) for some amount of time and then it'll subside, and come back, and subside for a while longer, and come back again ... and on and on and on.

Now what's causing this? Well, there are a few culprits, and who knows how equally these are contributing, but here's a little list:

• School stress, which is huge because I've got so much to do and so little time to do it, and I really don't want to fail all my classes. Like really, really badly.
• Emotional stress, which is also huge because I just don't have any idea what's going on anywhere and everything else that is stressing me out is making me emotional and then I can't do the things that I need to do.
• Homesickness, because let's face it: I love my fambam and I'm not so keen on taking that Classical Civilizations class during spring term.
• Confusion stress, which means I just don't know what I am doing with my life right now and I feel like I have all these decisions I need to make and I can't make them because I'm so confused and emotional and stressed out and I can't give anything the time that it needs.
• Medical stuff, a.k.a. I didn't get my blood tested in October, and I still didn't get it in November, or December, or January, or February ... and I probably won't have it done in March. I didn't do anything because I felt fine. Also, don't have a car and it's just hard to get stuff like that done when you've got so much else on your plate. But now it's starting to seem like maybe that's causing a problem, since I'm starting to recognize those symptoms that I was having 2+ years ago. Isn't that just great?

The stupid thing is that about a week ago, we were talking about hormones in Marriage and Family, and I was like "Haha. I'm on very particular and specific and steady daily doses of hormones, so I don't really get affected by them. Mood swings? Crying and not being exactly sure why you're crying? Who even has to experience that? Not me!"

Hah. Hah. Hah. I am not amused.

A Good Rainy Summer Day

This photo got posted on a blog that I follow:

I don't feel dreary, or sad, or tired. Well, a little tired. It is nighttime, after all, and it has been a long day. But that's not what this is making me think of, or making me want.

What this photo makes me want, and oh what I wouldn't give for a good, gentle, rainy summer day at the lake. I am lake-sick right now, bad. I think I've learned this about myself. I don't really get homesick. I get lake-sick. Why? Maybe because it's the only place that has been a constant in my life for over twelve years now. Sure, I've spent more time in other places, other houses that have been "home" for a while. But the lake is something I've always been able to look forward to. Yes, it's a big, scary lake, and it's full of nasty fish, and the water's pretty gross, and there are a ton of bugs, and when the thunder storms come, I start to be afraid of dying and the dock detaching from the property and all of my grandparents' hard-earned possessions disappearing into that murky brown water, never to be seen again. It's not all happiness and joy.

But it kind of still is. :)

And darn it, I miss it right now. I just want to be laying out on a deck chair on a hot afternoon just as a rainstorm blows in, and I want to get soaked until I'm cold. And then I want to go upstairs, take a warm shower, put on my sweats, and sit on the couch or the bed upstairs and just watch it rain, rain, and rain some more. That's what I want right now. That's the state my mind is in right now. That's how I feel, except for the fact that it isn't actually happening.

Is it wrong that I kind of want to go "home," just for this?

Who Says?

If I knew that when the sun rose this morning, it was carrying with it such a bitter reminder of my own fallibility, I might have buried my head under my covers and refused to get out of bed.
Perhaps I’m being a little over-dramatic right now, and I’m willing to accept that. Tomorrow, today probably won’t seem like such a disappointment. But for now it is and I deign it my responsibility to be honest and confront this unpleasant sense of disappointment in myself. Allow me to explain how this all went down.
Yesterday, I decided that I needed to take a little sleep, so I got all comfy on the love sack and shut my eyes. I’m not exactly sure when I went to sleep, or really when I woke up. I just know that at some point in the middle of my sleeping, I woke up abruptly and remembered that I had a paper due at 5 p.m. today. I am immensely grateful that God (and yes, it was God. I hadn’t thought of the paper at all, except for the 30 seconds of class last Wednesday when my prof mentioned it in passing) was loving enough to remind me that I had a paper due. Even if it was in the middle of a nap.
Being that I have decided not to do homework on Sundays, I didn’t do anything about it, and merely lamented the fact that I had failed to remember earlier, and also that I failed to study at all for the American Literary History test that I had to take today. And yes, it had to be today because my professor’s one of those lame people who only keeps tests open for one day, even if that one day doesn’t work for you AT ALL. So here I am with this massive conundrum: I have to study for a sizeable midterm, and write a paper, oh, and go to a group project meeting and do other homework all in one day.
Now, I realize that I could have managed my time better, and if I was a better student, I would have remembered these things and prepared for them and today wouldn’t have been a massive stress bomb on my life.
But I’m not, and I didn’t, and it was.
The paper took me WAY longer than it should have, and I turned it in frantically 1 minute before the deadline, knowing full well that it was more than 50 words too short, a.k.a. automatic 10% deduction. So that was disappointing.
It was also disappointing that I didn’t start studying for my test, which I needed to start taking by 8:00 until 5:00. Let’s look at the time breakdown here:
-Relatively Minor Paper: 11:00-5:00 (6 hours)
-Definitely Significant Test: 5:00-6:20, 7:00-8:00 (2 hours and 20 minutes)
Is this at all sensible, or indicative of which one should have been my top priority? No. Not at all. Very much the opposite, in fact.
So, after dinner group, I came back and studied more (and missed out on Heather’s pies ), and then charged up the hill, which meant my calves were on FIRE, and prepared for an abysmal failure. On the upside of things, the test didn’t turn out to be an abysmal failure. However, the overload of stress that today was can’t really be ignored by the tiny fact that one test wasn’t an abysmal failure. I am simply too entrenched in the general unhappiness of today for that to happen. (Tomorrow I will be fine, so don’t worry about me. I’m just expressing things as they are in the present moment.)
Right now, the only thing I’m finding consolation in is the song, “Who Says?” by John Mayer. Just ignore the stoned part.

Who says I can’t get stoned,
Turn off the lights and the telephone,
Me in my house alone?
Who says I can’t get stoned?
Who says I can’t be free
From all the things that I used to be,
Rewrite my history?
Who says I can’t be free?
Who says I can’t get stoned,
Call up a girl that I used to know,
Fake love for an hour or so?
Who says I can’t get stoned?
Who says I can’t take time,
Meet all the girls on the county line,
Wait on fate to send a sign?
Who says I can’t take time?
Who says I can’t get stoned,
Plan a trip to Japan alone?
Doesn’t matter if I even go.
Who says I can’t get stoned?It’s been a long night in New York City,
It’s been a long night in Baton Rouge.
I don’t remember you looking any better
But then again, I don’t remember you.

I almost did some crazy things tonight. Not crazy in the get-stoned-or-something-equally-rebellious kind of way, but just the doing-things-that-I-know-would-end-very-very-badly kind of way, because sometimes we want things that aren’t good for us. Like ice cream and J Dawgs and extensive exposure to sunlight.
Speaking of sunlight, today was a great reminder of a little pessimistic lesson that I’m rather fond of at present. I’m perfectly aware that it’s pessimistic, but you can kind of turn it on its head, and then it’s not pessimistic anymore. I just think it sounds and works better in the pessimistic sort of way.
So today I was walking back from class, miserably anticipating finishing my paper, I was walking through the sound circles area in front of the JFSB. The sun was shining, it was beautiful, and I can’t deny that. But we had one of those semi-rare moments when, despite the sunshine, it happened to be raining. I had no clue where that rain was coming from, but it was definitely falling on my face. And here’s where the pessimistic lesson comes in:

Just because the sun is shining
doesn’t mean it isn’t going to rain.

Isn’t that lovely? Sure, you can flip it and say that just because it’s raining doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining. But let’s face it – usually when it’s raining, the sun ain’t gon’ shine. That’s just the way it is. Whereas the first one … well, it just works better and you and I both know why.
Blame it on all the Byron and Keats I’ve been reading today, but dangit, I reserve my right to be pessimistic sometimes. And right now I’m having a pessimistic moment, and I feel like shouting to the world that even if everything in your life is going just peachy, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to end up with a wet face and shoes. That’s just the way life works. It’s not perfect always. Doesn’t mean you can’t be happy anyways, but it means that disappointments are going to come regardless. Sometimes, you’re just going to have to turn in papers that aren’t exactly what you hoped them to be, and you’re going to be practically hyperventilating and praying that all those six hours spent writing this tragically imperfect paper don’t come to a bitter finale by not letting you upload your paper. (Thank goodness that didn’t happen, even though for a little bit, I was totally scared that it was going to.) Sometimes you’re going to be sitting at a kitchen table trying to cram as much information about transcendentalism and realism and naturalism and romanticism and regionalism and whatever other crapism that you’re supposed to know into your head as you can, even though you haven’t done any of the reading since the last class, and your professor sometimes acts like he’s stoned on the sound of his own voice and his own stupid trivia and makes you want to punch a baby. Sometimes you’re just going to be so disappointed with the way you handled things, and the fact that you can’t do everything, and that you make really stupid mistakes sometimes.
Sometimes these things happen.

Pensive

Do you ever feel like everything in your life is overlapping,

and the same things are coming up everywhere?

Like there's some cosmic collision happening,

and you're right in the middle of it?

I do.

And I can't tell if it

just so happens

to all be colliding right on top of me,

or if I'm supposed to be a part of it,

or if I'm just creating a cosmic collision

within the confines of my own head

that is completely separate from actual reality.

I don't like it.

The Feeling of Words

I've got a pretty crazy internal dialogue going on almost all of the time. If I'm not having a silent conversation with myself, I'm most likely imagining some sort of dialogue between myself and another party. This gets real interesting when I'm annoyed with people, and I'll tell you why:

It's because my brain makes up very ... erm ... unique insults.

I think that this must be a pretty typical function, since some of Shakespeare's weirdest (most brilliant?) moments are his insults. There is even an entire online dictionary of his insults: http://www.william-shakespeare.org.uk/shakespeare-insults-dictionary.htm. Not to, in any way, put myself on the same level as Shakespeare, but I think that the human mind gets pretty creative when it wants to tell something else that it sucks.

Unlike Shakespeare's verbose and clever insults, however, mine tend to come in very short phrases, most frequently individual words ... which have absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

Now, you might be getting a little confused right now, and that's completely understandable. You need an example. Let me give you one.

A few days ago, I was perturbed by some person doing some thing that I found rather irritating. Probably something to do with the way that they chose to walk through a hallway or block a path or something similar. My brain said something like this: "Ugh are you serious? Can you not see that there are people here trying to get around you? What's your problem, box elder?"

In case you didn't notice (and you really should have, because I italicized it), the word of that sentence that doesn't make sense is "box elder." Yes, it's technically two words, but it's a single term, so don't get persnickety with me.

As this thought passed through my head, I suddenly forgot about the person doing whatever it was that they were doing, and I wondered what the heck had just come out of my internal mouth. Box elder? Had I heard someone use it that way before? I knew it had something to do with nature, but I couldn't even remember if it was a tree or some kind of stick bug (I just Googled it, and it's a tree... and a bug. Go me).

My first action was to look it up on Urban Dictionary, to see if that had any clarification. (I highly recommend NOT looking up the term "boxelder" on UD, just so you know. It has a "definition," but it's not one you'll have heard, and it's not one you want to hear about.) It clearly had no colloquial meanings that I could have possibly heard.

Really, though, let's think about this. There is no explicable reason for why that word popped into my head at that moment. Who ever even uses that word? I certainly don't, I can't even identify trees, and box elder bugs give me the heebie-geebies ....

So where did it come from? Surprisingly, I think I have an answer for you.

The English language is a delicious one that gives us a lot of different sounds. I'd call it something like ... musically diverse, though not in the traditional sense of the word "music." The production of these sounds creates a physical sensation in our mouths, and, I'd suggest, an emotional response to that physical sensation.

If you don't believe me, read John Keats' ode "To Autumn" out loud, and I dare you not to enjoy the lusciousness of his diction. Your mouth practically explodes. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you have just got to see what I mean by that. Add on the actual meaning and connotations of each words, and you've practically got a bomb of sensation and meaning sitting right in front of you, waiting for you to immerse yourself in it. I know I'm getting ridiculously English-major-y here, but I can't help it :)

Let's look at a couple of examples of gross words:

1. Moist. Say that one aloud and try not to gag.

2. Flesh. Woof.

3. Pork. Just say it out loud a few times.

4. Puberty. Ehhhhhh.

5. Puss. ... I seem to be selecting a lot of "p" words now ... hmmm ...

6. Nugget.

7. Gluten.

These all just make my mouth feel icky, and then you throw in the meaning of the word, and usually it's just grossie-josie all over the place. Now try to put a bunch of them in a phrase, like "A nugget of moist pork flesh ..." Yeah I'm sorry you all probably just puked. My bad.

You might be wondering right about now what this all has to do with my use of the word "box elder." Say that one out loud a few times. Roll it around in your mouth. Say it with frustration. Annunciate. Throw in a little sarcastic flare. Say the whole phrase if you have to.

If you don't do it, you probably won't get it. And I'm betting most of you probably won't, but I'm telling you, box elder is a very desirable word for the expression of frustration. See, it's got that forceful "b" on the front of it, which gives it power, and that "x" in the middle that gives it a satisfying sting ... The long and short of it is that the physical sensation of saying that word fits really well with the emotion I wanted to express.

But here's the problem: the meaning of the word really detracts from my ability to use it.

I think words are best used, or at least most satisfyingly used, when those three aspects—the emotion being conveyed, the physical sensation and sound of the word, and the meaning of the word—are all aligned.

Let me give you another example. The one that first popped into my head is, unfortunately, not in English. But I think you'll still understand. It comes from the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 1:9. In English, the verse reads:

"And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noonday."

The word I want to focus on here is "luster." I don't much like it in English, but that word in French is "resplendissement." (Type it into Google Translate (make sure the settings are French --> English) and click "listen" if you want to know how it's properly to be pronounced.) Technically, that word translates to "splendor" in English, which is just another cool effect of translation ... but can't you hear the glistening in that word? It just flows smoothly out of your mouth, and twinkles like stars. Not only is there so much emotion to be conveyed as Nephi is talking about Lehi's vision of Christ, but the sound of the word matches that feeling, and the very meaning of the word. They're all right there together, working to achieve an overall word-experience. It's beautiful! (Yes, I'm geeking out over words right now. Just get over it.)

I guess I don't have too much more to say on the subject. I've probably already said too much. Whatever. If you ever questioned my choice to be an English major, there's your proof that I picked right. :) Hahaha.

Verbal Vomit

There are so many words in my stomach right now. They’ve been writing and twisting around and inside each other for so long now that I think they’ve just become one huge, pulsating mass. (I’m sorry, is this getting graphic?) I just have so much to say, and no where I can say it – not even here, and (dare I say it?) I’m beginning to miss my anonymity.
You know, that’s why this blog happened … so that I could go back into this world of anonymity and stop having my name attached to everything I had to say (I used to be a prolific Facebook Note-writer). Only then I started trusting myself more, trusting other people more, trusting them not to think I was crazy or stupid or emotional or verbose about every silly thing I wanted to talk about, and so I invited them to this blog, and it has become a beautiful thing. I love that there are people who actually read what I have to say. Granted, there aren’t many of you. But I like it just the same. :)
And yet, there’s a bit of a problemo. You see, saying goodbye to anonymity, making my blog available to any wandering eye, not having an iron gate and a guard that only lets selected viewers in … that means I have to be careful about what I say, because I don’t know who is going to read it. And worse, sometimes I do know who is going to read it, and so then I know for sure I can’t write it because you just don’t tell all things to all people. Not all at the same time, at least, and not in the same way.
The same thing seems to have happened to every social networking/blogging thing that I’ve become a part of, and I’m caught in this little Bermuda triangle of wanting to say some things to some people, wanting to make sure other people don’t hear those things, and having this bizarre need to have this all be broadcast out into universe. I might give up on that last part and just write in my journal about it, only here’s the thing: I don’t necessarily want my progeny reading some of this crap. I am blocked on all sides here. Can someone help me out?
Where is that dumpster in the alleyway that I used to be able to barf my guts into? You know, the one that was private, but not too private, and if someone wanted to go look at it, it was their choice and like, ya know, whatever … but nobody you didn’t want to be checking out your Technicolor yawn would be? I kinda miss that.
I suppose the easiest solution would be to simply let go of all the things that are causing the turmoil that has been making me want to deliver a sidewalk pizza like, every single hour of every day for the past week. We’re talking big time thunder-chunder rainbow parfait, splashin’ the hash, lateral cookie toss … I mean it’s ridiculous.
You know what would solve this problem? If people would just say what they think, and what they mean. Because if everyone else was doing it, then I could be doing it, and it wouldn’t be building up inside me like a psychedelic stomach shuttle just waiting for lift-off.
(Side note: I’ve just realized how many times I make reference to vomit on this blog (and based on that fact, probably also in real life) and so I’m considering renaming the blog “Finding the Center of Your Porcelain Chakra” or something … gosh I’m gross sometimes.)

Paper-Writing Ego

I just wrote a 3.5-page paper

in 4 hours

with numerous breaks

(including one to make spaghetti

with from-scratch sauce)

and not a single ounce of stress,

even with the looming 6 p.m. deadline.

I emailed it in 35 mins early.

Am I ridiculously proud of this?

Yeah. I am.

So I have a massive paper writing ego.

What of it?